Teenage poet releases book of verse inspired by adolescence in Sunderland

Sunderland writer Tobias Hodgson, 19, has released his first collection of poetry aimed at painting a zany, yet touching, portrait of growing up in Sunderland.

Entitled Fantasies, the poetry book offers an array of loosely-connected vignettes concerning the many awkward episodes of adolescence and young adulthood.

Tobias says he's hoping to breathe new life into the Sunderland poetry scene with a darkly comedic take on the less documented, less magnificent portions of life.

He said: "‘I don’t think poetry is being used to its full potential by a lot of people at the moment. "A lot of contemporary poems that I read now bore me to death. I mean, how many times can you write about grass? Or how sad you are over something?

"More importantly, who wants to read that? I don’t. And that’s part of the reason why I’ve released this book. I don’t take myself very seriously in my poems, they are mainly supposed to be amusing and ridiculous, because that’s what 90% of my teenage years have been, and I’m sure I can’t be the only one."

Speaking about the poetry scene in Sunderland, he said: "‘The city is becoming a real cultural hotspot with places like The Fire Station and Pop Recs as well as plans for a new library, which will only serve to galvanise the town further.

"All the local venues in the music scene are thriving and there’s plans to open a film studio but we have very little in the city in terms of poetry, which is a shame considering the wealth of talented and creative people that we have here.

"I’m trying to fill that gap in our local artistic scene and hopefully inspire other people in the area to write and release their own poetry too."

Tobias added: "The book is small-scale and relatable, it isn’t concerned with trying to change its reader’s world view or make them question their existence.

"There’s plenty of other people who are better suited to doing that than me. I don’t think I’ll ever be in the business of making era-defining proclamations about what it means to be human or anything like that, it doesn’t interest me.

"I’d rather write about going to the corner shop and your card getting declined than write about the universe or politics. I’ll happily leave the big topics to someone else; they can have them."

Tobias began taking his writing seriously after leaving sixth form in 2022, but it wasn’t until June of this year that he began to view writing a poetry collection as a serious option.

Fantasies is a culmination of the work that came in the months following and the writer felt as though it was the perfect time to release his first collection.

He said: "I’ve always seen turning 20 as a bigger milestone than 18, and for the past few years I’ve known that I wanted to create something and release it before I enter manhood properly.

"I wasn’t entirely sure of what route I was going to take to achieve what I wanted to do, but when I started writing what became Fantasies, I knew that I had the right approach and writing tone to do my adolescence justice in the form of this book.

"I’ll be releasing the follow-up collection early next year, so there’ll be a nice pair of poetry books that hopefully capture the social and especially romantic misadventures of a youth spent in Sunderland."

Fantasies is available on Amazon in both paperback and kindle formats. The book is also for sale in-store at both Port Independent and Otto in Sunderland city centre.

A launch night will be held at Otto, in Stockton Road, on the evening of Wednesday, September 27, where Tobias will perform some of the poems.